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Brain Training Database: Treasure Trove for Preclinical Alzheimer’s Research? (Alzforum):
“Some researchers think brain games in general—which adapt to each user’s cognitive ability—may one day serve as cognitive diagnostics to monitor progression or help enroll clinical trials.…Michael Weiner of the University of California, San Francisco, hopes to use the game data to identify people who show signs of cognitive decline and may make good candidates for AD prevention trials…The Lumosity database offers the advantage of a historical record of cognitive function, noted Weiner. “When you enroll people in clinical trials, you have very little history about them,” he said. “Having some kind of objective, longitudinal data, even if it’s not perfect, can potentially identify people who are at risk for future cognitive decline and AD.”
“The question is, how can the Internet help us get to a cure more rapidly?” Weiner asked. “I think there are many ways to use it, and this is one.”
Apart from their potential roles in boosting cognition or flagging people in cognitive decline, some researchers propose that brain-training games may also serve as sensitive cognitive tests in their own right. Cognitive tests used in AD clinical trials, such as the MMSE, CogState, and batteries such as the ADAS-Cog, are highly validated and administered under the supervision of a neuropsychologist. Advances are being made in putting together computerized composites, which researchers hope will be sensitive enough to detect people in earlier stages of cognitive decline…At least one company is hoping the games will win the hearts and minds of regulators and pharmaceutical companies seeking to detect subtle changes in cognition in response to drugs, or to pick out participants for such trials…In collaboration with Pfizer, Akili plans to enroll 100 people who have subjective memory complaints that fall short of cognitive impairment measurable by the Mini Mental State Exam or ADAS-Cog.”
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